


Speeding Up To Slow Down

by gossy16



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-30
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-12-07 00:17:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/741877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gossy16/pseuds/gossy16
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Written in February 2007.) He tells Peter that they broke up as if it's the most casual thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speeding Up To Slow Down

He starts awake in sweat and out of breath, but it's a cold February night in New York. He's dreamed of fire and crying, so hot and so loud, but it was just a dream, and it's 3am in Texas. He'll call in the morning just to put his mind at rest. It's only a couple more weeks until Spring break, anyway. It was no more than a bad dream. He's finally almost asleep again when the shrill ringing of the phone shatters all of Nathan's plans.

(The sun doesn't rise, that day.)

*

He goes home for Spring break, to his brother's delight and his parents' triteness. Peter asks about his girlfriend over dinner, about the ski trip, and Nathan receives a stern look from his father, a cold pat on the knee from his mother under the table, and realizes he's never before felt so alone. He tells Peter that they broke up as if it's the most casual thing. When the boy asks if that means he'll be spending the next Christmas there, Nathan wants to reach across the table and pat his brother on the head, ruffle his floppy hair, affectionate gestures that they don't _do_. Instead, he just looks at him and says, "I don't know, Pete. Maybe."

It's summertime in the city and Nathan is braving the crowds in FAO Schwartz. Peter is an August baby, like she was. Somehow he finds himself lingering by the stuffed animals, fixating on a bear that looks too familiar, and it takes a pointed " _Can I help you, sir?_ " to tear him away and steer him back towards the video game section of the store. He ends up picking up _Zelda_ and _Ninja Turtles_ games for his brother, and also _SimCity_ for himself.

There are countless vapid broads he is introduced to at frat parties, dinner parties, fundraisers, who have all heard so much about him, and laugh throwing back unimaginable hair at every word he says while they merrily sip expensive champagne. Nathan wants to disappear, he wants to scoff at the insult they present, and sometimes he wants to fuck a really pretty one, so he does. It's not long until he gains his father's esteem back; if the pride Nathan recognizes in the feral smile indicates correctly. He can't fucking _wait_ to get to Law school out of state.

*

He meets Heidi, on a clear day in September, after he's just completed his degree at Yale. It's a chance encounter in the Park, right outside the Met. She's from Florida, has incredible blue eyes, and he offers to show her around a bit. He doesn't know how it happens exactly, couldn't pinpoint the minute, but before sundown he's pretty sure he's already in love. She marries him in a white dress the following Summer, and he is at peace for a day. Months later, on the way back from her doctor's office, he tells her everything, and tells her she makes him happy. He believes every word of it, and she as well. Holding their son for the time, Nathan thinks, feels like what flying must feel like.

Peter drops out of NYU one semester shy of graduating in Art History, and Nathan thinks that's complete crap, says so to his face. “If you're going to pursue a useless degree, at least finish it.” But Peter knows what he wants, and nothing Nathan tells him is going to make a difference. He envies him his freedom and feels pangs of pride for the brat, pangs of shame at himself that he will never voice. Peter enrolls at Columbia's School of Nursing and graduates a semester early.

When he's pulled out of his car and Peter claims he's seen it all, Nathan doesn't know whether to scoff at him or punch him in the face - he's not a man who cries or crumbles or lets himself get overwhelmed. But Heidi's life hangs in the balance right now, and he's been at the hospital for hours. Nothing makes much sense, but Peter's dream, Nathan tries to believe, that was a mere coincidence. At least, he knows where his boys are.

His father dies, but Heidi lives, and the case he's been building is as good as moot. Nathan agrees to take over the campaign because he wants to hold onto the ideals he's got left. Incidentally, it serves to ensure he won't end up like his dad or go down the same road.

*

Peter has got it in his head now that he can throw himself off of buildings, and when the Odessa Police Department calls, Nathan can't cover up the flash of panic fast enough for no one to notice. Heidi tells him he should go, he nods and says he's going to be back just as soon as he kills his brother with his own hands. She half-smiles at this. He wants to be angry, because Peter is fucking crazy if he believes it's his fucking place to save the world, and Nathan is fucking _tired_ of the police calling all the time, of Peter's devil-may-care childish act, and Nathan's fucking tired of fucking _Texas_.

He's had lots of time to think. He thinks maybe the campaign isn't his top concern right now, maybe never really was, maybe was more of a distraction from everything else. He thinks if Peter leaves him alone to cope with their mom, it could very well be the end of him. He thinks, if he stands up from that chair and gets out onto the street, he may mindlessly stand still in the middle of traffic and get run over by a bus. He thinks he thinks too much, and if it's the last thing he does, it couldn't hurt much more to give his brother's so-called visions just an ounce of credit.

Then all of a sudden, it turns out his daughter's alive, and Peter saved her, and she him, as in a very real, big joke from the universe. The boys are happy they have a sister, and he, only Heidi knows how he feels. Claire is a nice name, he'll get used to it if she lets him. If he lets himself. He should have known when he refused to fly that she'd do something so Peter-like. He should have let her hit the pavement and put herself back together, if only to teach her a lesson. Quite ironically, instinctive impulse dictates otherwise, and when she raves about it after, in superlatives and words she probably made up, Nathan has to fight hard to suppress a smile.

When Peter starts to radiate and panic right outside his campaign headquarters, Nathan walks towards him unafraid, because he knows what he should do. He's won, and there is redemption, albeit selfish - but that is who he is, and he's just glad if they all get to live. They're a mile in the air already when Peter realizes it and shouts for Nathan to let go of him. But Nathan's always been stronger. He only tightens his grip and speeds up. "Think of Claire, Peter. Think of Claire." Peter only wants him to shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up, _shut the fuck up, damnit_ , and Nathan can see how good he's gotten at this flying thing, because now they're racing towards the sun, pushing faster and faster, faster than he's ever been, until...

Someone, somewhere, switches off the sun again.

*

(And _whoa_ , there's a dream Nathan is pretty sure couldn't possibly be anything else. How Peter would love it.)

He's going normally about his day, getting the campaign to work up some steam, five weeks away from election, until of course, he's interrupted. He's come to expect these now, it's a matter of 15 minutes, maybe a half-hour dealing with it, moving on. Pretty dodgy alley, this one, but again, this is Peter. Nathan's head snaps up skyward when a cell phone crashes at his feet, and seeing his little brother standing on the edge of a building makes his heart skip a bit. What the fuck is this, now? "What you doing, Pete?"

He believes Peter is nothing if not hell-bent on sidetracking his campaign, spoiled little attention-seeker. He hates him a little for it, even, and would more without the knowledge that he’s the one who made him that way. Still, now, the freak actually thinks he can _fly_!? What’s next, time travel?


End file.
